The pitch Like many young boys, Eric Olsen collected hockey and baseball cards. He made the transition from memorabilia collector to entrepreneur when he decided to sell most of that collection on eBay. That led to being contacted by a photographer who wanted to trade some of his images for some of Mr. Olsen’s, who in turn put those original slides up for sale.

“It piqued my interest because hockey cards and baseball cards are based on photographs. I started wondering who took those images,” says Mr. Olsen, who managed to find a photographer’s collection of 30 years’ worth of original photographs.

He and his wife decided to buy the inventory and take a shot at starting a business — Vintage Sports Images — which he now runs from his home in Gibsons, B.C., on the Sunshine Coast.

What began as a side project for the hourly wage earner, soon developed into a full-time job. Since 2007, Mr. Olsen has been buying and selling original vintage sports images via eBay online stores. He continues to build his inventory of images to auction on eBay through a network of contacts across North America.

At the time of his appearance on the den, he had an inventory of 45,000 images and more than $750,000 in sales for five years. But he was still a one-man show. “Finding the images, scanning them and shipping them is a lot of work for one person,” Mr. Olsen says. “An investment from the dragons would mean I could get some help and buy more inventory and establish a website so I could have another vehicle for sales.”

Kevin O’Leary suggested Mr. Olsen could make more money commercializing the images and creating a high resolution database. However, Mr. Olsen likes the business model he has created. “Images elicit an emotional reaction from people, myself included. With this model, people can buy an image at a reasonable cost that is unique. It’s something I enjoy and it makes me feel good,” he says.

He cites photos he sold to the widow of Bill Speer, who played for the Boston Bruins in 1970, the year they won the Stanley Cup. “I had some images of him cutting Bobby Orr’s hair in the dressing room and him holding the Stanley Cup. His widow contacted me and said she didn’t have any pictures of him playing for the Bruins.”

Mr. Olsen says more than 90% of the images he sells have never seen the light of day before, but he adds he would like the business to grow while keeping the images affordable and unique.

The deal Mr. Olsen wanted $100,000 in exchange for a 33% equity stake, valuing the company at about $300,000. Four of the five dragons were keen, but Mr. Olsen took a deal from Bruce Croxon, who gave him what he asked for on air. The deal is still on the table as they work their way through due diligence. Meanwhile, Mr. Olsen created vintagesportsimages.com in addition to his eBay store with the goal of driving business to each.

The dragon’s point of view “I was attracted to the deal because I love sports and I’m a small collector of sports photographs,” Mr. Croxon says. “I’m finding more and more these days it helps if I’m naturally interested in something because I need to draw my energy to put time into something other than just the money.

“As far as the business, he hadn’t really done much since he launched the company. He had this inventory of potentially valuable photographs that he marketed one at a time on eBay. To me it was ‘boy if you could hook him up with someone who knew what they were doing from an Internet marketing perspective he should be able to do a lot more volume.’ The value of the inventory was pretty much the valuation of the company, so worse-case scenario, you have the images and the value they hold inherently. The challenge will be to crank up the volume. I have some digging to do still on how he actually changes the negatives into prints and how arduous a process it is. We need to make sure it doesn’t take a week to produce or else it is destined to be a very small business.”

The expert’s opinion Chris Van Staveren, partner, transaction service, KPMG Enterprise Services, was surprised there was so much interest in a micro business. “I know these are vintage, original negatives and slides but I don’t’ understand the value. It comes down to the whole environment. Is it trending up or down? Back in the day I traded hockey cards, we all did, my kids don’t. There are competing products for that next generation who are so exposed to so much with digital imaging. It has to be a shrinking market over the long haul. That’s my concern.”

Even so, Mr. Van Staveren was impressed with the entrepreneur, whom he describes as understated and professional. “I think he was able to attract the dragons because he recognized he needed their expertise and it was easy for them to see how they could add value. If he had said, ‘I just want to buy more inventory,’ I don’t think it would have worked.”

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